French citizen guilty of assaulting Filipino children on live television; IJM calls for accountability in the technology and finance sector

On Friday, November 1, 2024, the Paris High Criminal Court found a 59-year-old French citizen guilty of complicity in the rape and sexual assault of minors and sentenced him to 25 years in prison.

This case involved live-streamed sexual assault on children, some as young as five years old.

Non-governmental organization International Justice Mission (IJM) has called on technology companies and financial institutions to take decisive action to prevent such atrocities on their platforms, applications and devices.

The former Disney and Pixar graphic artist had been on trial since Tuesday for allegedly paying Filipino women to rape and sexually assault Filipino girls ages 5 to 10 in front of a webcam using a “livestream” app between 2012 and 2021. “

The glaring absence of preventive measures for almost a decade has exposed critical failures of technology platforms and financial institutions to detect and report online sexual abuse and child exploitation (OSAEC).

This case highlights worrying gaps in the technology and financial systems that need to be designed securely to protect vulnerable children and prevent exploitation.

“This case highlights the systematic failure of technology and financial companies to stop the exploitation of children on their platforms. France, the European Union and countries around the world have the power and responsibility to enact robust online safety laws that require tech companies to detect/report or disrupt/prevent live child sexual exploitation on their platforms, apps and products. Financial institutions should also be held accountable for preventing suspicious financial transactions linked to abuse. Small, irregular payments from one sender to many recipients are a distinctive pattern for child sexual exploitation payments; particularly payments for what Europol calls “live-distance child exploitation”, which is “the main form of commercial sexual exploitation of children and the main form of child abuse”. unknown main source of CSAM.’ “Financial institutions must be held to a higher standard of child protection and enhanced due diligence must be used to prohibit and block these payments,” said John Tanagho, executive director of IJM’s Center to End Online Sexual Exploitation of Children.

“Beyond prosecuting online sex offenders, the tech and finance industry’s industry-wide ‘security by design’ response is crucial to preventing and stopping abuse and exploitation,” Tanagho added.

“This should include device manufacturers, because every day smartphones running advanced operating systems come with zero security to prevent the production, streaming and distribution of child sexual abuse material,” Tanagho added.

IJM also called on the Philippine government to strictly enforce the Anti-OSAEC Act passed last year, including the mandate for tech platforms to monitor and take action against child exploitation.

According to IJM, the Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) should also issue implementing rules and regulations requiring financial institutions to identify and prohibit exploitation-related transactions, especially suspicious patterns indicative of child trafficking.

OSAEC is still common in the Philippines; IJM’s Harm Scale national prevalence study estimates that nearly half a million Filipino children — or 1 in every 100 — will be victims of OSAEC, including livestreamed abuse, in 2022 alone.

IJM supported Philippine authorities to bring more than 1,400 children to safety from abuse.

According to IJM’s previous research, more than half of the children abused in the cases it worked on were 12 years old or younger; The youngest is only a few months old. In more than 80 percent of these cases, children were abused by their parents or relatives.

Children experience serious mental and physical trauma due to this abuse.

In the Philippines, IJM found that victims were abused for an average of two years before being granted protection.

In April 2024, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. issued an executive order to intensify efforts against OSAEC. This mandate calls for strengthening law enforcement to rescue victims, prosecute criminals, and implement a comprehensive approach to combating OSAEC.

Marcos also established the Office of the President for Child Protection to coordinate a national response and develop institutional and legal measures specifically aimed at protecting children from OSAEC.

IJM, in collaboration with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Interagency Council to Combat Human Trafficking (Iacat), and the Presidential Communications Office, held a national OSAEC summit last September 16 and launched the nationwide “Bayang Walang” campaign. Bahid ng OSAEC” (A Country Perfected by OSAEC).

The campaign aims to raise public awareness and dismantle society-based norms that hinder reporting.

Alongside efforts to increase community reporting, IJM’s Harm Scale report underscores the urgent need for technology companies and financial institutions to adopt industry-wide standards to detect and prevent abuse at an early stage.

“This case in France is an example of how global efforts to protect children must address enablers across multiple sectors. Children deserve more than justice in the courtroom; They deserve a world where the technology and financial industries stop enabling the sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking of children and instead actively work to keep children safe,” Tanagho said. (PR)